Four Exciting Indie Press Books to Add to Your Reading List

Based on the real-life figure of a runaway nun turned conquistador, this wildly inventive novel blurs the lines between history and hallucination. Fleeing the convent and remaking himself as Antonio, the narrator recounts his wild transformations—muleteer, soldier, caretaker—in a lush New World teetering between ruin and hope. “Sensuous and searing,” declared Publishers Weekly. “Readers will be riveted by this queer anticolonial picaresque.”

Forget the old rules. The cofounder of Run for Something delivers a myth-busting manual for a new era of leadership. Drawing on insights from Versha Sharma (Editor-in-Chief, Teen Vogue), Maxwell Frost (first Gen Z member of Congress), and Evan Spiegel (Snap Inc. CEO), Litman lays out how to lead with clarity, set boundaries, and build power—without burning out in the process.

What if motherhood doesn’t change your life the way everyone said it would? In this sharp, unsentimental debut, a new mother unravels as she questions her marriage, friendships, and self. “An engrossing, hilarious read,” says Rebecca Makkai. Kiley Reid calls it “brutal and delightful.” With echoes of Nightbitch and Rachel Cusk, Brown’s debut is darkly funny and fiercely honest about what gets lost—and what might be found—in the wake of birth.

The author of The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree returns with another ambitious tale of Iranian history, magic, and memory. Spanning half a century, this novel traces a family fractured by revolution and bound by ancestral mysticism. "A wildly ambitious novel about Iran's past, present, and future filled with longing and fury,” raved Kirkus. For fans of Márquez and Allende, this is lyrical, blazing storytelling that confronts repression with myth and love.